Venezuela: President Chavez orders investigation into killing of trade unionists, calls for expropriation of companies

Speaking during the swearing in of the newly elected PSUV governor of Aragua, Rafael Isea, Venezuelan president Chávez ordered a full investigation into the killing of three trade union leaders in the state and threatened to nationalise any companies which violate workers' rights.

Speaking during the swearing in of the newly elected PSUV
governor of Aragua, Rafael Isea, Venezuelan president Chávez ordered a full
investigation into the killing of three trade union leaders in the state and
threatened to nationalise any companies which violate workers' rights.

He insisted that "no crime should be left unpunished,
neither this one nor any other one" and explained that the killings of trade
union leaders Richard Gallardo, Carlos Requena and Luis Hernandez were an
action of sicariato, a political assassination.

Referring to the Colombian owned dairy plant Alpina, he said "a certain company needs to be investigated. It is a foreign-owned company
where they were fighting against the attacks of the company. I have ordered an
investigation into the actions of this company." He added, "because there are
companies in other parts of the world which have even used contract killings against
workers' and peasant leaders, and now they want to bring these practices here.
We cannot allow this in Venezuela! And we must fight strongly against it."

In a reference to the use of the Aragua police force against
the workers by the former opposition governor Didalco Bolivar he said: "Isea,
you have all my support to radically transform the police and the security
forces of the Aragua state"

Later on in the same speech, Chavez mentioned the social and
economic conflicts in Aragua and asked to be updated about the struggle of the
Sanitarios Maracay workers. "All those companies where there are problems with
the workers, where workers are not paid their wages, where the employers
exploit the workers, or where a company closes down and does not pay its workers,
or where it has become indebted and cannot pay its workers, well, they have to
be recovered, nationalised, taken over". Adding "this is what socialism
is, the social ownership of the means of production".

President Chávez also stressed that in this (the take over
and nationalisation of companies), "the working class has a key role to play"
and made an appeal to the "workers of Aragua, the working class".

This is not the first time that Chavez makes a clear appeal
to the working class to take over factories to be nationalised. However in the
past, the leaders of the UNT trade unions (either because they oppose workers'
control or because of a sectarian approach towards the government) had not used
this opportunity to launch a serious campaign of factory occupations and a
nation-wide struggle for workers' control.

Only one organisation in Venezuela, the Revolutionary Front
of Occupied Factories (Freteco) has made an effort to put these appeals into
practice, but with limited forces. In some cases, like the struggle of
Sanitarios Maracay, in Aragua, the workers did occupy the factory and actually
started producing under workers' control. But the then Minister of Labour Ramon
Rivero publicly refused to nationalise the company and sabotaged the struggle
of the workers. The different wings in the leadership of the UNT also played a
dreadful role in this struggle, some openly supporting the strike breaking role
of the Minister of Labour, others (like Orlando Chirino) opposing the idea of
nationalisation under workers' control and even proposing that the workers
should negotiate with a different set of capitalist owners.

The struggle of the workers' at Sanitarios Maracay
encapsulates the main problems of the Venezuelan revolution: the sabotage of the
right wing bureaucracy in the leadership of the Bolivarian movement, the fact
that the old capitalist state apparatus is still in place and was used against
the workers, and the lack of a serious alternative at the head of the workers'
movement.

All this is in contrast with the revolutionary spirit of
struggle of the Venezuelan workers, which in the early hours of Tuesday,
December 2nd, organised mass workplace meetings, rallies, road
blockades and work stoppages in Aragua, as part of the regional day of protest
against the killing of the three trade union leaders. The first reports of the protests talk about
workers in the following companies being involved: Produvisa, Cervecería
Regional, Vasos Selva, Cativen, Remavenca, HV Envases, Industrias Iberia, Alconca,
Plumrose, Titán, Diablitos Underwood, Pepsio-Cola, Toronocas, Venezolana de
Riego, Serviquim, Sindicato de la Alcaldía del municipio Zamora, Nestlé, Vasos
Dixie, Tupaca, Manpa Higiénico, Sanitarios Maracay, Mom, Aluminios Reynolds,
Galletera Puig, Central El Palmar, Cebra, Inica. Rallies and road
blockades were organised in Villa de Cura, Cagua and Maracay, paralysing the
whole of the state.

The only way to put an end to the reactionary provocations
and killings is by taking away economic and political power from the bosses,
the bankers and the landlords. This is the task of the working class of
Venezuela and the only way to guarantee the victory of the Bolivarian
revolution.